Autonomous ID has been a concept since 2009, with the goal of making relatively low cost ID system.

Todd Gray, the company president, said the company has already run tests on sample bio-soles with an accuracy rate of over 99%.

According to Gray, Carnegie Mellon will be broadening the tests to include people of all shapes and sizes.

"The continuing threats to military personnel and critical infrastructure and the growing national cyber security vulnerabilities demand a new breed of credentialing technology, and what our group has achieved certainly puts a whole new spin on things," he said in a press release.

Vladimir Polotski, the chief science and technology officer of Autonomous ID, will be providing researchers with the instructional technology intrinsic to the emerging science of pedo-biometrics.

"This new collaboration is a wonderful way to showcase our ongoing work in the emerging field of biometrics and our growing commitment to integrate innovative lab work with the needs of industry. It also offers wonderful opportunities for fundamental research in pedo-biometrics with potential applications in medical diagnosis, forensic science, privacy, security and automation," Vijayakumar Bhagavatula, a professor of electrical and computer engineering (ECE), said in a press release.

Savvides said the new lab will be housed at CMU and will complement Gray's work of using the iris of the human eye as a fingerprint to trap cybercriminals.